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‘The Future of Christianity Is Already Here’: Gospel Spreading at an ‘Explosive’ Rate in Africa

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Evangelicalism is growing around the world but nowhere more so than in Africa where the increase has been “explosive”, says researcher Jason Mandryk.

By contrast, growth in Western nations remains “modest”, he told the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) on the first day of its World General Assembly taking place in Seoul this week.

In a detailed presentation tracking growth, delegates heard how in 1960, evangelicals accounted for only 8% of the global body of Christ. Today it stands at over 25%, said Mandryk, a Christian researcher with Operation World. The total number of evangelicals worldwide, he estimates, sits between 600 million and 650 million.

“We are many …, we are increasing,” he said, explaining that the growth is down to a combination of factors, including natural reproduction, evangelism, and the “evangelicalisation” of Christians who were not previously evangelical.

Around 70% of Christians in general, many of them evangelicals, live in Africa, Asia and Latin America, he said. In Africa specifically, this growth has gone hand in hand with “rapid urbanisation”, with many rural Christians migrating to cities. (Read more from “‘The Future of Christianity Is Already Here’: Gospel Spreading at an ‘Explosive’ Rate in Africa” HERE)

I’ve Had It With the Phrase ‘You White Evangelicals’

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A gentleman named Luis posted a lengthy comment to a YouTube video where I explained why I ultimately decided to vote for Donald Trump, and I cite his comment here because it reflects the sentiments of many others who have declared open season on white, conservative Christians in America.

Luis began by saying, “I respected you as a wise Christian Dr. Brown,” but that respect disappeared when he noticed who I voted for. As he stated, “It makes me think of you as the same hollow headed Christians who think they vote on principles when there’s nothing to vote on principles for.”

So, despite my many caveats and concerns regarding Donald Trump, and despite the important pro-life, pro-family, pro-religious liberties of the Republican platform, no solid principles of any kind could cause anyone to vote for Trump. There must be other reasons, none of them good.

Of course, Luis is not alone in his disdain for Trump — he does a good job of summarizing the most egregious charges against Trump, be they true or not — which is why I stated numerous times in writing and on radio that I respected those who could not vote for him.

The Flippant and Easily Flipped Charge of White Evangelical Bias

Unfortunately, Luis is not alone in claiming that a vote for Trump was a reflection of white evangelical bias. As he explained, “Your view is casually related to the view of white evangelicals in this country but if you ask Christian Hispanics and black and Asian Christians, our views are totally different. Why would that be Mr. Brown?”

Actually, Luis could have asked the same question four years ago or eight years ago, when roughly the same percentage of black and Hispanic Christians voted Democrat. Was it because Romney and McCain were also evil men, or was it because these minorities have a history of voting for Democrats? And what of the 28 percent of Hispanics, 27 percent of Asians, and 8 percent of blacks who voted for Trump? Were they as blind as the many white evangelicals who voted for him? Were they also hollow-headed and lacking in principles?

After making the claim that I voted for Trump because of pressure from my radio audience (is he referring to the large number of African American listeners or the large number of anti-Trump listeners?) he continued, “But you have become the mockery of this world who can’t trust you because of your amoral morality and have show[n] us the minorities that your huge bible studies, books and Universities are worthless when politics are involved, because of your grandeur white evangelical spirituality all us Christians will suffer with this man in the White House.”

There you have it in a nutshell. Trump will be our next president because of the sinful “grandeur” of “white evangelical spirituality.”

Does Luis really believe that it was some kind of white nationalism that caused so many evangelicals to vote for Trump? Did we all just wake up one day and decide to sell our souls to the devil?

Racism is Sometimes in the Eye of the Beholder

But there’s more. Luis writes, “And if it’s true that God chooses and deposes Kings, when Obama is and was President you white evangelicals disrespected him as many times as possible calling him a Muslim, a dictator and the Antichrist and since it is a biblical imperative and spiritual law that people reap what they sow, it might come to be that all you call President Obama will become true in President Donald Trump.”

There it is again. A professing Christian man writing with passion and conviction throws around the phrase “you white evangelicals,” as if he himself is exempt from racism. After all, he is (presumably) a minority Christian and therefore, as a member of a minority, cannot himself be guilty of racism (at least, according to the latest, PC definitions of racism, which claim that only the majority class can be racist).

The reality is that racism is a two-way street, and just as we must call out anti-black or anti-Hispanic or anti-Asian or anti-Native American racism when we see it, we must call out anti-white racism too. Justice and fairness and honesty require it, whether it’s PC or not to do so.

Critics can shout “white privilege” all they want, but truth is truth. They can claim that minorities cannot be guilty of racism against the cultural majority, since racism, they say, has to do with oppression. But that is a conveniently manufactured definition of racism rather than the real definition of racism.

Of course, some people claim that you can only address the sins and shortcomings of your own community, not someone else’s community. But if that is true, it would mean that blacks, for example, could not call out racism when they saw it among whites. Does anyone really believe this? And can we not address sins within our own, larger community, namely, the Body of Christ?

Unfortunately, Luis makes the all-too-common error of assuming that all criticism of President Obama was based on race, failing to realize that: 1) our issues had everything to do with the content of his policies and nothing to do with the color of his skin; 2) liberal criticism of President George W. Bush was as least as harsh as conservative criticism of Obama; 3) those making the ridiculous claim that Obama was the antichrist did so despite his race rather because of his race (which prophecies speak of a black antichrist?); and 4) most of those falsely claiming that Obama was a Muslim did so because of his background (being the son of a Muslim who was listed as a Muslim while in school in Indonesia) and because of his pro-Islamic words, not because of his skin color.

Unfortunately, like many of those who throw around the race card today, Luis fails to see his own blind spots, asking, “Who of you white Christians will stand now and openly accuse Donald Trump of his policies that will harm minorities?”

We Can Do Better Than This

Is he truly unaware that, for more than one year, prominent white Christians raised many concerns regarding Trump’s policies, even leading the way in the Never Trump movement? And is Luis truly unaware that many of those who voted for Trump believe that, in the end, he will prove himself to be the president of all Americans, including minorities?

Again, I fully understand why many Americans, including Christians, have deep concerns about President-elect Trump, and I recognize (and have many times addressed) the highly divisive nature of his campaign.

I also understand how his campaign and election have unearthed a lot of ugly attitudes (perhaps among Christians in particular), one of which is an anti-white hostility, a hostility fueled by bitterness, judgmentalism, and misinformation.

I urge my brothers and sisters in the Lord to search their hearts and ask Him to reveal racism of any kind – be it anti-black, anti-Hispanic, anti-Jewish, anti-Asian, anti-Native American, or anti-white. It is unbecoming for the family of God and contrary to our nature as followers of Jesus.

Surely we can do better than this. (For more from the author of “I’ve Had It With the Phrase ‘You White Evangelicals'” please click HERE)

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Why Muslims Are Becoming the Best Evangelists

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Photo Credit: WIGTake Resources

Photo Credit: WIGTake Resources

By Timothy C. Morgan.

After traveling 250,000 miles through Dar al-Islam (“House of Islam”) as Muslims call their world, career missiologist David Garrison came to a startling conclusion:

Muslim background believers are leading Muslims to Christ in staggering numbers, but not in the West. They are doing this primarily in Muslim-majority nations almost completely under the radar—of everyone. In the new book, A Wind in the House of Islam: How God is Drawing Muslims Around the World to Faith in Jesus Christ, Garrison takes the reader on his journey through what he describes as the nine rooms in the Muslim-majority world: Indo-Malaysia, East Africa, North Africa, Eastern South Asia, Western South Asia, Persia, Turkestan, West Africa, and the Arab world. Muslims in each of those regions have created indigenous, voluntary movements to Christ.

“What did God use to bring you to faith in Jesus Christ? Tell me your story.” This was the core question Garrison asked as he traveled and conducted more than 1,000 face-to-face interviews. In his background research, he documented 82 historic Muslim movements to Christ, consisting of either at least 1,000 baptisms or 100 new church starts over a two-decade period. The first sizable movement of Muslims toward Christianity did not occur until the mid-19th century, nearly 1,300 years after Mohammad established Islam. Garrison said 69 of these movements today are still in process:

In Algeria, after 100,000 died in Muslim-on-Muslim violence, 10,000 Muslims turned their backs on Islam and were baptized as followers of Christ. This movement has tripled since the late 1990s.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: YouTube.

Photo Credit: YouTube.

Jewish Children Assaulted by Muslims on Temple Mount

By Joshua Levitt.

A group of Jewish children and their fathers ascended the Temple Mount on Tuesday and were verbally and physically assaulted by Muslims objecting to their presence, according to recorded footage of the incident released on Thursday.

According to Israeli media and the footage, about 20 religious children were verbally assaulted, then the side curls of one boy were pulled and Muslims also spit and threw shoes.

While one of the fathers told the children, “Do not be afraid,” Temple Mount police did little to protect the group of Jews.

Rabbi Chaim Richman, director of the Temple Mount Institute and a close follower of relations at the site, related to The Algemeiner further details of the incident.

“Following the closure of the Temple Mount during Passover and the brief and harrowing attempts at Jewish ascent on the final Sunday of the holiday, here is what happened,” the rabbi said.

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: PMW / Screenshot.

Photo Credit: PMW / Screenshot.

Hamas-Fatah Reconciliation: Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV Broadcasts IDF Soldier Slaughter – ‘Our Harvest is Your Heads’

By Joshua Levitt.

As leaders of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah met Hamas in Gaza City on Wednesday to announce plans to unite, Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV broadcast its hatred of Israel.

Palestinian Media Watch on Thursday translated a chilling propaganda ad showing snipers slaughtering soldiers from the Israel Defense Force, then grabbing their dog tags, while a narrator says, “Our harvest is your heads.”

PMW also translated an article in official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that quoted Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh insisting that Hamas’ policy of kidnapping Israeli soldiers would continue under a unified government.

“The kidnapping of Israeli soldiers is part of the agenda of the Palestinian resistance and of the Hamas movement, and will continue as long as there are Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli prisons,” Haniyeh was quoted as saying by Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.

The article was published last week, days before the unity plan was announced to the Israeli and international press. The PA media outlet attributed impetus for the unity push to Haniyeh, who was quoted as describing the unification strategy as “the next stage” of a pre-agreed plan:

Read more from this story HERE.

Evangelical Weakness in Gay Boy Scouts Debate Could Hurt GOP

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Photo Credit: tedeytanSigns of waning evangelical power in the nation’s culture wars and in Republican policy — and some unexpected challenges for GOP candidates — loom as the 103-year-old Boy Scouts of America gears up for a definitive vote this week on whether to welcome openly gay youths into the organization’s ranks.

If the BSA delegates gathering just outside Dallas vote to admit gays, it will reinforce the growing notion that evangelical Protestants and their conservative Catholic allies no longer can muster their troops as they once did, in such battles as state referendums over same-sex marriage and the 1996 enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

“There’s no lobby more vicious than the homosexual lobby, and the 65 to 80 million-member evangelical constituency provides no troops for the fight against that lobby,” said David Lane, president of Pastors & Pews and a leading religious right political organizer. “Evangelicals are playing checkers in a chess game.”

A prominent Mormon and board member of a national conservative political organization said privately said that his church, bruised from public relations battles with gay-rights activist groups, has been left holding the financial bag after other denominations failed to come through with promised aid in the fight for Proposition 8, California’s voter initiative against same-sex marriage. The Mormon church has moved on to other battles in the cultural wars rather than take on the gay-rights activists.

After floating a plan to end the 3.9 million-member group’s ban on gays, BSA leaders have crafted a compromise that would allow openly gay Scouts to participate but maintain the ban on adult gay Scout leaders. Even that move sparked adamant opposition from some Christian leaders, especially those who ally with the Republican Party.

Read more from this story HERE.

Billy Graham Evangelistic Assn. Targeted by IRS

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Photo Credit: escapedtowisconsinThe man known as America’s pastor was among those targeted by the Internal Revenue Service after the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association ran newspaper advertisements promoting traditional marriage and biblical values.

“I am bringing this to your attention because I believe that someone in the Administration was targeting and attempting to intimidate us,” wrote Franklin Graham in a letter to President Obama. “This is morally wrong and unethical – indeed some would call it ‘un-American.’”

Graham is president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association as well as the international charity Samaritan’s Purse. Both organizations received word of audits on the same day – not long after they ran full –page ads supporting North Carolina’s Marriage amendment.

The ads encouraged voters to “cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel.”

The ad concluded with the words, “Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me (Billy Graham) that America will remain one nation under God.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Coulter: Liberal Media Lying Again About Evangelical Support for Amnesty

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Photo Credit: Daily Caller Every few months since at least 2006, The New York Times has taken time out from brow-beating Evangelicals to praise them for supporting amnesty for illegal aliens.

Most of the “Evangelicals” the Times cites are liberal frauds, far from “unlikely allies” in amnesty, as alleged. It is a specialty of the left to pose as something they’re not in order to create the impression of a zeitgeist. The only one I haven’t seen quoted yet is the ACLU’s minister, Barry Lynn.

The Times keeps touting Evangelicals for Amnesty as evidence of a “shift,” a “change of heart” and a “secret weapon.” Breaking the same news story every two months since 2006 isn’t a shift; it’s propaganda.

Any Evangelical promoting the McCain-Rubio amnesty plan has the moral framework of Planned Parenthood. Like the abortion lobby, they have boundless compassion for the people they can see, but none for those they can’t see.

One Evangelical after another told the Times that they no longer believe Americans should have control over who immigrates here on the basis of having met illegal aliens in their pews. The millions harmed by illegal immigration are left out of the equation. They don’t go to church here.

Read more from this story HERE.

'Evangelicals, Catholics Could be put on Watch List, Denied Guns'

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Photo Credit: WND

Citing recent “inflammatory rhetoric” by Army officials, the head of the Family Research Council is warning supporters that President Obama could put evangelical Christians and Catholics on a “watch list” to prevent them from purchasing guns.

FRC President Tony Perkins said on his “Washington Watch” radio broadcast Wednesday that the Senate’s bipartisan proposal requiring background checks for Internet gun sales is “very concerning given the fact that the United States military has been increasingly showing hostility toward evangelicals and Catholics as being somehow threats to national security and people that need to be watched.”

In an email today to FRC supporters, Perkins explained that a recent Army briefing on “religious extremism” declared evangelical Christians and Catholics are among the biggest threats to America, along with Islamic supremacist groups such as al-Qaida and Hamas.

Perkins said it was also discovered that, in an email, Army Lt. Col. Jack Rich highlighted FRC and the American Family Association as groups that do not share “our Army Values.”

In his broadcast Wednesday, Perkins tied together the Army rhetoric with the proposed Senate legislation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Evangelical Pastors Declare: ‘We are Gay’!

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Photo Credit: Hutchpost

Coming out of the closet is a difficult decision to make, especially when close, personal relationships are at stake. Will my family abandon me? Will my friends still look at me the same? Will this announcement be worth the risk? These are indeed valid concerns that can make a person live like a double agent for years. And even though this decision is acutely personal, it does help to stand alongside someone else who is ready to announce the very same thing. It is a shared declaration. Coming out may be a personal choice, but doing it with someone you love somehow feels so right. It is with this spirit of unity that we, Pastor Ken Hutcherson and ministerial partner James Hansen, would like to shout loud and proud, “We are gay!”

For full disclosure, most of the people who are close to us have known for years how gay we are. Both of our wives know we’re gay and are completely supportive of this lifestyle choice. Our coworkers know we’re gay and have often asked us how they, too, can live as a gay Christian. And even though we’ve never made a formal announcement together, the bulk of our congregation has suspected it for years. How could they not? Our gayness is obvious in the way we talk and the way we act toward one another. Hold a gaydar up to either of us and it’s likely to read “Fabulous!”

So, this announcement will only come as a surprise to people who don’t know us that well. For those on the outside looking in, this would be the furthest thing they would ever imagine coming from two pastors at a conservative evangelical church. For some reason, Christians aren’t allowed to be gay. We’re seen as angry, oppressive malcontents who look like they’ve been baptized in vinegar. We’re often caricatured as plastic phonies who are willfully naïve, or miserable misfits who aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy. But from our perspective, certain individuals in another community seem like they’re the unhappy ones who are overtly hostile to anyone who disagrees with them.

For instance, Dan Savage claims to be gay. But he’s not. He’s just a vapid agitator who happens to be homosexual. His subcutaneous vitriol recently burst out at some high-school students when he saw they didn’t support his view of the Bible. And despite the obligatory apology he gave for his tirade, Savage’s hostility is what those teens will remember. Nice going, Mr. Tolerance. Now, we ask you, does Savage sound gay? Of course not. How could somebody that sour and unhappy label himself that way? For our part, we would like to extend the proverbial olive branch to this errant activist: Mr. Savage, please come over to our office and we’ll teach you how to be gay. You’ve tried it your way and it’s not getting you very far. It’s only made you a humorless bully. We promise that Jesus can bring you true happiness. If you let us show you how to really be gay, we know that you’ll leave our office a changed man.

Read more from this story HERE.

The Evangelists’ Failure

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Somewhere in America this week, Protestant Christ followers will donate money to fund missionaries. The offering for the Lottie Moon fund will be collected. Mission to the World will get a check. The Foreign Mission Board will be funded and prayed for. The Salvation Army bell will be rung.

Around the nation, Evangelical America will, throughout the year, hear tales of their missions, missionaries, and their money at work drawing people in foreign lands and occasional parts of the United States to Christ. They will hear of using their money to rebuild churches and homes after disaster, to care for the homeless, and to fund retirements of past preachers of the Truth. They will get lists of where their missionaries are, some with the word “Sensitive” in place of the name of China or Syria or Cuba. They will pray.

On Monday morning, many in Evangelical America will get up and take their kids off to a church affiliated school, having chosen to remove their children from declining, failing, and secular government schools. Others will wake and teach their children themselves, sometimes combining with other parents to homeschool.

On Sunday morning, many curious new comers will probably go into a church not called a church lest it deter them, where they will experience a Christ who may or may not be as they seek the Christ who is and was when they were young and more open to receiving him The conversion of the flock is not as difficult when done at an early age when the mind is still open to the miraculous. “Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

What Evangelical America will most likely not do this week or this Sunday or any week or any Sunday is write a check to send a stranger’s child in a government school to a Christian school. This is one of the greatest failure of the evangelical church in the United States of America.

Read more from this article HERE.